Scientist Knits "Brain Hat" Ahead Of March For Science

April 22nd is Earth Day, but this year it will also be the date of the March for Science. The flagship march will take place in Washington D.C., but sister marches are happening around the globe, including at least five in Utah.

Professor Helga Van Miegroet is attending one of these marches and stopped by the studios of Utah Public Radio to show off a special, brain hat she's knitting for the occasion (seen above). She described her motivation to knit the hat this way:

“There’s the expression that says you carry your heart on the outside. I said, I want to carry my brain on the outside.”

“I have never done this before, so I don’t know how it will come out. But even if it’s crooked, I will wear my hat proudly,” said Van Miegroet.

Van Miegroet is a scientist twice over, simultaneously a professor in the College of Natural Resources and a graduate student in sociology, both at Utah State University. But Van Miegroet is not marching for science because she feels that she’s owed any special deference on account of her credentials.

“I really think that we need to get out of that box of just saying, “well, we know better.” And, it’s rewarding to see that now in the sciences we are embracing the fact that it’s not enough to collect data; to do good science, but also to reach out to the community and step out of that ivory tower and just say “this is why you should care; this is why it’s important; this is how I’m making a contribution.""

Van Miegroet fears that a kind of anti-intellectualism is gaining traction in the United States, and will be marching this weekend to celebrate the contributions of science and scientists.

“President Trump talks about making America great. Well, science is what makes America great. It’s those innovations. It’s that thinking outside the box. It’s that serendipity of creating new applications for science that was done for a totally different reason.”

Demographic trends suggest that minorities may soon make-up a majority of the U.S. population. In 2014, white children made up less than 50% of the population in public schools. However these demographic trends are not represented in some academic fields, which remain overwhelmingly white.

Just over 10 weeks after the idea was first proposed in a Facebook post, tens of thousands of protesters are heading to the nation's capital for the Women's March on Washington on Saturday.

Similar marches are planned in more than 600 other cities and towns around the world. But the largest is expected to take place in Washington, D.C., less than 24 hours into the presidency of Donald Trump.

Crowdfunding is a term you have probably heard recently. The idea is to solicit a large number of small to medium donations in order to fund some kind of project or product development, and there are many online platforms that allow their users to do just that. While It’s not difficult to find crowdfunding proposals online ranging from heartwarming to ridiculous, some scientists are now looking to crowdfunding as a way to finance their research.